125N at Portage

A pair of GP40-2s that have spent their entire careers in Alaska lead a 20 car train 125N toward Anchorage.  This traffic traveled on CN's Aqua Train barge from Prince Rupert and was interchanged to the ARRC at the Port of Whittier on Prince William Sound 12 miles (three and a half of which are in tunnels!) behind them.  They are joining the mainline from Seward now known as the Kenai Sub at MP 64.2 for the 50 mile run north to Alaska's largest city.

The broad Portage Valley provides a spectacular scene as the train traverses the causeway over the marshland here.  Prior to 1964 this was a forested area and there was a bustling community here.  But that town was wiped off the face of the earth when the ground subsided up to 12 feet in places flooding the land and necessitating the building of these long fills seen here.  After the quake only the railroad and the highway were rebuilt but what little remained of the community became a ghost town rotten sunken buildings and a "pickled" ghost forest of dead trees protruding starkly from the still saline water that was once solid ground.

Portage, Alaska
Sunday September 17, 2017